Some people think that it is all about having the answers in business and they forget that it is equally important to be able to ask the right questions. You will meet these people and they are often the ones who drone on for too long at meetings and take five minutes to say something that could be said in two. Early on in your career and especially during time on a graduate program it is a time to learn, ask the right questions, get homework answer and listen. I have been as impressed by a colleague’s structured methodical approach in being able to ask the right questions and obtaining information as I have been by a colleague with knowledge and answers to hand.
To step into an environment where you have very little knowledge and pick up information quickly is very tricky even if you have said in your interview that you are a ‘fast learner’ and you can ‘soak up information’. Alongside that mental capacity and enthusiasm that has helped get you the job, you must be able to ask the right questions to elicit the information to help build your knowledge.
Having the ability to ask the right questions is a key skill to develop and more difficult than it might seem at first. There will be situations where you may have a short amount of time allocated for a meeting with a senior colleague where you need to get some information, be it financials, strategy or a roadmap for project rollouts. It will be up to you to drive the conversation and get the information you need by being able to ask the right questions.
Think about a questioning strategy moving from high level information to more detailed questions as you drill down on the key facts and figures you need explaining. Ask open ended questions that give a scope for a detailed answer rather than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ which doesn’t build your understanding a huge amount. Simple things like adding ‘and if not why not?’ onto the end of questions can help take the answer from closed to open and will ensure you ask the right questions that add value for you.
Read: https://studydaddy.com/attachment/76087/svwn7e7nbl.docx
A simple methodology for questioning can follow the path below. Whether your career path has taken you into Retail, Automotive, Marketing, Banking and Finance or Consultancy, you can nearly always add a questioning framework around the thinking below to make sure you ask the right questions to get the information you need:
- - What ?
- - Why ?
- - How ?
- - Where ?
- - When ?
- - Who ?
Graduate Career Tips: Think about the information you need to get before approaching someone blindly and come up with a train of specific questioning that will get more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. Develop the skill to ask the right questions early on in your career and it will help you increase your knowledge on tricky subject matters. Being able to ask the right questions is just as important sometimes as having answers!
More resources:
Conference Calls – Top 10 Tips
Job Descriptions – Making sense of Job Descriptions when applying for jobs
